Medium now charges $75 to set-up a custom domain

Heck, no more custom domain for Write (formerly Growing Writers), for now…

Precisely, 12 days ago, I initiated a move towards purchasing a custom domain for my medium publication. I even went ahead to buy benjamindada.org. That day, I received this email from one of the User Happiness Personnel at Medium Support, let us call his name — A, saying they (Medium) were introducing “some changes”.

Mail dated Feb. 12

Little did I know that I wouldn’t be able to afford the formerly FREE custom domain set-up (*bites fingers*, I should have acted sooner).

Only for me to check my inbox today and see a mail from another personnel in a slightly different team, let us call his name — Y, telling me “…a $75 charge will apply…”.

Mail dated Feb 23

Considering the forex rate in Nigeria, that would be about

$75 * 490 = #36,750

It got me thinking (*hot tears rolling down*), is this really worth it? I mean, for a student? and someone who isn’t making any money from publishing on Medium?.

Why is Medium doing this? Why now?

It was evident that Medium needed a sustainable revenue generating model to remain in business, considering they had to lay-off 50 staff (which was one-third of Medium’s staff then) and close down their office in New York, as reported by Constine.

My only problem is, no one told me it would be this soon (I mean Q1 is still very much in force till March ending) and I didn’t expect this “new” model to affect custom domain owners (but hey!, what was I thinking?).

Well, I would be happy to see where this leads Medium’s financials by the end of this Quarter. But in the meantime, I am holding off setting-up a custom domain till I am sure I have a direction for my publication. Or perhaps till the exchange rate becomes more favourable.